A customer named Dave visits the Market Street Safeway recycling center, which is soon to be shuttered.

A customer named Dave visits the Market Street Safeway recycling center, which is soon to be shuttered.

Photo: Liz Hafalia, The Chronicle

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Cheryl Coerper waits in line at the recycling center next to the Market Street Safeway in San Francisco, Calif., before it opens on Friday, January 10, 2014. She's been using the recycling center since 1985. A law suit was filed and protests have recently been held to keep the long time recycling center open. less

Cheryl Coerper waits in line at the recycling center next to the Market Street Safeway in San Francisco, Calif., before it opens on Friday, January 10, 2014. She's been using the recycling center since 1985. ... more

Photo: Liz Hafalia, The Chronicle

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The recycling center is known as a magnet for people who rummage through residents' blue bins.

The recycling center is known as a magnet for people who rummage through residents' blue bins.

Photo: Liz Hafalia, The Chronicle

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Doug Anderson recycles from a suitcase at the recycling center next to the Market Street Safeway in San Francisco, Calif., on Friday, January 10, 2014. A law suit was filed and protests have recently been held to keep the long time recycling center open. less

Doug Anderson recycles from a suitcase at the recycling center next to the Market Street Safeway in San Francisco, Calif., on Friday, January 10, 2014. A law suit was filed and protests have recently been held ... more

Photo: Liz Hafalia, The Chronicle

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Julius Country uses the recycling center next to the Market Street Safeway in San Francisco, Calif., on Friday, January 10, 2014. He's used the facility for the past 25 years and remembers being interviewed by Chronicle columnist Herb Caen while recycling at the center back in the day. A law suit was filed and protests have recently been held to keep the long time recycling center open. less

Julius Country uses the recycling center next to the Market Street Safeway in San Francisco, Calif., on Friday, January 10, 2014. He's used the facility for the past 25 years and remembers being interviewed by ... more

Photo: Liz Hafalia, The Chronicle

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Yes, Safeway can kick out nuisance recycling center

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The acrimonious debate about change in San Francisco reached another milestone this week, when Supervisor Scott Wiener announced that the industrial-size recycling center in the parking lot of the Market Street Safeway will close this summer.

The closure is sure to stir more cries about the evils of gentrification from advocates for the homeless, but Wiener says there was little support for the site.

"The concerns about this site cut across all political views," he said. "People saw this as a neighborhood quality-of-life issue. You hear these stories of being on the F-Market (trolley) and people come on with huge plastic bags of recycling. I think there was a huge, collective sigh of relief when (neighbors) heard it was closing."

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Community Recyclers, the group that operated the site, fought the eviction doggedly, as it did when its center in Golden Gate Park was closed. Safeway posted a formal eviction notice last summer, but the recyclers refused to leave. Safeway filed a lawsuit, which was headed to court until this week, when a settlement was reached to close on July 1.

Ed Dunn, who operated the site, did not respond to calls for comment, but in the past he has insisted that closing the center would violate the California Bottle Bill, which requires large supermarkets to have recycling centers. In an interview last year, Dunn said the closure was "really about gentrification."

Actually, it isn't.

Better options

Dunn is right about one thing. The Bottle Bill requires a recycling option, and Safeway intends to provide one. Among the options are "reverse vending" machines, which accept cans and bottles and dispense a voucher for cash or goods. A machine like that is in operation at Safeway's King Street location.

What the closure will do is make it more difficult for the large-scale scavengers, who have turned theft of recyclables into a criminal enterprise. They cruise the streets at night and loot the curbside recycling bins. Some even pay homeless individuals a small sum to raid the bins and collect bottles and cans for them.

Mark Murray, executive director of Californians Against Waste, a political advocacy group that promotes recycling, supports the vending machine option.

"We need to make sure the system isn't being gamed by illegal operators who are stealing hundreds of pounds a day," Murray said. "Frankly, (if the machines) make it a pain in the butt for somebody with a truck, tough luck."

Not that Murray is totally on board. He's concerned that Safeway might try to duck its responsibility.

"I don't see anything in the agreement that has Safeway committing to multiple recycling options," he said. "Actually, it sounds to me as if they may be willing to accept the modest $100 a day in fines (for not having recycling available). Safeway is a big company. They may see it as the cost of doing business."

Carts full of recyclables

It will be interesting to see the effect of the closure. With the Golden Gate Park and Webster Street recycling centers closed, this was one of the last in the city center. Andrea Aiello, executive director of the Castro/Upper Market Community Benefit District, says there was a noticeable increase in traffic after the other centers closed. Shopping carts loaded with recycling items rolled up to the center seven days a week.

"I know that those merchants up on that end of Market will be happy," said Aiello. "In the past they had complained that there was a highway of shopping carts headed up there."

But Wiener says the guys with a plastic bag full of cans will still be able to cash them in.

"We want to make sure people can still redeem," he said. "Some of them depend on it."

So, to review, a recycling center that was too large and messy for the neighborhood will close. Although individual recyclers will still be able to turn in bottles and cans for cash, it will make it difficult for the rip-off artists who are stealing recyclables and gaming the system.

Put that way, it seems like a reasonable and thoughtful response that preserves the good and discourages criminal elements. Sounds like a win-win, doesn't it? In fact, maybe no one will even protest.